PRAGUE — If Prague were a planet, circling and spinning past the sun, it would be one that sends back light to those who take the time to look. A Mercury or Mars, let’s say. Rich and purple and alert for steps upon its soil.

During my first trip here, I feel as though I have come by Saturn rocket, not by jet. Milling with the hourly crowd that waits below the Astronomical Clock on Staromìstské Námìstí (Old Town Square), I quietly unzip my pack and leave my guidebook for another tourist on a cafe chair. Books like this will get you to expect a city that is deeply northern, glowering with gray and serious stone.

Berlin, I’d guessed, or Warsaw. Vienna with a twist.

What no one tells you is this: The Czech Republic’s capital does not belong near Germany, Austria or Poland. With its delicately tiled sidewalks, its buildings of spring green and orange and blue, it should be close to some Southern ocean. A Lisbon that loves Mozart or an Athens that forgot Sophocles and gave birth to Kafka instead.

Suddenly, the bells of the Astronomical Clock go off. Out pops its parade of clockwork icons and saints. The crowd lets out a yell. I cheer, too.

In place of my guidebook, I turn to Milos Curik, who runs a tour company called Arts & Music Travel. Curik gathers our group, waving arms like a conductor who has lost his baton, and we are off and into narrow streets.

“Prague is like an architectural quilt,” he shouts, surging ahead. “One that’s taken centuries to sew.”

Some of the quilt work reflects the country’s checkered past. Once known as the Kingdom of Bohemia, Czechs have been incorporated in the Habsburg monarchy, merged into Czechoslovakia and held under the yoke of Soviet bloc communism before peacefully splitting off from Slovakia in 1993. In the Old Town, Gothic churches are squeezed in next to houses with Roman foundations, which lead to buildings that are grandly baroque. We lurch ahead and backward in time simply by marching around.

Because of this background mix, Prague has been, for years, a draw for filmmakers from Hollywood and elsewhere. It’s a city that can be anything a director wants. Classics like Milos Forman’s Amadeus (1984) and Philip Kaufman’s The Unbearable Lightness of Being (1988) were draped over city exteriors, and Daniel Craig’s James Bond ran around here alongside Judi Dench in the 2006 remake of Casino Royale.

Kafka lived here

As we tourists pass facade after facade, Curik’s thoughts and legs move fast. He is an Olympian guide, full of goals for the group. “I would like to show you all 16 of Franz Kafka’s apartments in Prague!” he says. “But we do not have time!”

We settle for a visit to the house in which Kafka was born, near the Church of St. Nicholas in the Old Town. The house has a normal roof and normal walls. It doesn’t make me think of Kafka. Somehow, reading a plaque about the author, I get a chill. I hear the slamming of a window. “Absurd, absurd,” caws a crow right overhead. The Trial, I think, and In the Penal Colony: Books like these came out of here.

Kafka was of German-Jewish descent, and our next stops are in Josefov, the city’s Jewish quarter. Here is the Altneuschul, which dates to 1275 and is the earliest synagogue in Europe still in use. In the vaulted interior I spot a banner with its Star of David, sewn in gold. It also depicts a hat, which makes me hunt for a brochure. According to this, it’s another bit of history: a style often worn by Jews here in the 15th century.

Pinkasova Synagóga (or Pinkas Synagogue) is something more. Though simpler in design and smaller, it is a testament in curving stone. Its inside walls are a mass of tens of thousands of hand-painted names in minuscule print. “Czech Jews,” explains Curik. “Victims of the Nazis during World War II.”

Silent now, we follow our guide into a square called Ovocný Trh. Curik points out an enormous set of metal doors across from the Museum of Czech Cubism. When we look closely, we see that the doors are have sculpted heads all staring in the same direction.

“When people ask me what communism was like,” Curik says with a smirk, “I show them these.”

“But what’s behind the doors?” someone asks.

“Garbage,” Curik says. “Much like the economic system.”

Cool to be square

Later, on a walk by myself, I come back and go into the museum. My artist grandfather had taught me to think of cubism in terms of painting, but in the former Czechoslovakia, the movement launched itself into architecture and design.

Since the Czech cubism exhibits are inside Josef Goèár’s “House of the Black Madonna” (1911), the city’s first cubist structure, I get a feel for what this meant by just examining the building’s blocks and angles outside. Its black iron balcony is full of rectangles, not bars. Bay windows do not sweep or curve: They cluster like squared-off panes around a lighthouse’s torch.

Back on the tour, we reach a different side of Prague. One that’s loud and maniacal after what we’ve seen so far. What is it? someone asks. “Look,” Curik says simply. “Look at the Lennon Wall.”

There are slashes of electric pink and blue. Lyrics in English, Beatles lyrics and a face staring out of the frenetic scrawl. A street artist’s portrait of John Lennon that, according to Curik, was painted soon after his death.

Since the 1980s, this slab of concrete on Velkopøevorské námìstí has served as a message board, a canvas for social commentary, and spray-painted sketches that take after 1960s artists like Peter Max. Criticisms here would sometimes stick in the craw of the former communist regime, leading to clashes between students and security police.

“But like Wikipedia,” Curik sighs, “it is always changing, always being painted over, year after year.”

Here Comes the Sun, I read.

Sun, sun, sun.

Here it comes.

There’s a part of me that wants to add more. I don’t. I’m confident that Prague can write on its wall without me.

Early Doors and Cream cuts have been wafting from stores. Czechs are up on their classic rock: I know this to be true. I discover that Curik is an aficionado, a former concert promoter.

“Did you know,” he tells us softly, as if secret police might still be listening, “that Frank Zappa was an adviser to our former president Václav Havel?”

Absurdly stylish

I am sure that Curik must be joking, but when I check this later, I find, amazingly, that it is true. Zappa and Kafka. Kafka and Zappa. There must be a connection, I think. Then it hits me.

I remember the caw of that crow: “Absurd, absurd.”

Prague may be a bit absurd, I think, but this is its ancient and successful plan.

Few northern cities are this light, this warm. Few capitals choose history over heavy progress. And no place on Earth can show you centuries of style, both harmony and art, inside an afternoon.

When you go

Dating to the 15th century, Prague’s Astronomical Clock tells the hour along with the zodiac sign and the positions of the sun and moon. Mechanical figures march around to accompany the bell. Climb or ride an elevator to the top for about $5.50. Hours: 11 a.m.-6 p.m. Mondays, 9 a.m.-6 p.m. Tuesdays-Sundays.

The Charles Bridge, Karluv Most, Staré Mesto, Prague

Like the Rialto in Venice, Prague’s Charles Bridge serves as a sort of signature for the city. Arching over the Vltava River between the Old Town and the Lesser Town, the bridge dates to 1357 and features a two-story Gothic tower bearing sculptures of Czech icons. Learn more: charlesbridge.cz.

Most people think of cubism in terms of paintings, but in the former Czechoslovakia, the style found its way into furniture, architecture and all sorts of design. You can check examples out in this smallish museum. Have a square meal or snack at the restored Grand Cafe Orient at the same address (grandcafeorient.cz). Museum:ngprague.cz. Phone: 420-224-211-746. Hours: 10 a.m.-6 p.m. Tuesdays-Sundays .

Pinkas Synagogue (or Pinkasova Synagóga), Siroká 3, Josefov, Prague

The interior walls of this stone synagogue are covered with almost 80,000 names of Jews from the Czech regions of Bohemia and Moravia who were sent to their deaths by the Nazis. Visitors can also enter and tour the Old Jewish Cemetery. Learn more: jewishmuseum.cz. Phone: 420-221-711-511. A combined ticket that also offers admission to Prague’s Altneuschul, or Old-New Synagogue, is 480 Czech koruna (about $26.50). Hours: April-October, 9 a.m.-6 p.m. Sundays-Fridays; November-March, 9 a.m.-4:30 p.m. Sundays-Fridays.

SHOPPING

Artìl, Celetná 29 (entrance on Rybná 1), Prague 110 00

Opened by an American designer, Karen Feldman, Artìl’s flagship store in Prague is a showplace for handmade Czech crystal as well as for Czech textiles, ceramics and an eclectic mix of jewelry, books and toys. Phone: 420-224-815-085.

A luxury hotel that’s a good fit for a city with a musical heart, the Aria has room keys shaped like a G-clef — and it’s a short walk from the State Opera House and the Rudolfinum, where the Czech Philharmonic Orchestra is based. Doubles start about $315.

This simple but pleasant hotel is moderately priced and situated in an Old Town medieval house. It’s one of the few small hotels happy to pick up guests who arrive via the airport or train station. Double rooms start about $130.

Holder of the Czech Republic’s only Michelin star (as of early July), Allegro has the elegant atmosphere and fine dining you’d expect. Entrées — like the Maccheroncini al Torchio with fava beans, artichokes and roasted quail — start about $23.

Lokal, Dlouha 33, Prague 110 00; Phone: 420-222-316-265

An interesting, inexpensive restaurant and saloon that specializes in basic, no-nonsense Czech cuisine. We’re talking traditional dishes like svíèková that are heavy on the meat, bread dumplings and gravy. With its wooden tables and menu in Czech only, the atmosphere evokes a Communist-era beer hall and is about as un-touristy as you can find. Entrées start at about $9.50.

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